Heute mal ein bisschen Werbung in eigener Sache: Der folgende Artikel stammt aus meiner Kolumne, die zweimonatig auf http://www.europeandme.eu/heart-mainmenu-55/328-a-taste-of-europe erscheint. Es geht immer um ein kulinarisches Thema aus europäischer Sicht.... Heute also mal auf englisch :)
The Oktoberfest, the British Campaign for Real Ale, budget flights to Prague for cheap "pivo," legal battles over "purity" in the European courts – for better or for worse, the taste of Europe is often the taste of a frothy half litre, pint or Bavarian Maß. Here Christiane Warmbein takes us from the cradle of beer right up to the present day, with a few recipes for you to try out on an Autumn evening...
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| Photo: bigfoto.com |
| A delicious glass of Pilsener... |
Beer is one of the oldest drinks on earth. Evidence of the first attempts to "brew" beer can be found in records of the Sumerians, an ancient civilisation located in Mesopotamia around 3000BC. Old bread dough is said to have got wet – at first by chance – and yeast spores in the air caused spontaneous fermentation. The first source indicating that beer was consumed in western Europe dates from 800 BC in Kulmbach, in northern Bavaria.
It was not until the 8th century AD that the first beer was brewed the way and with approximately the taste we know today: hops were used as a flavouring ingredient. The development of the art of brewing was due to the monasteries, which brewed for their own consumption. Many of them later extended their breweries and are still well-known trademarks and flourishing companies today.
The oldest and most famous brewing law was passed in 1516: the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot ("purity law"). It states that the only ingredients to be used for brewing were barley, hops and water, and it is still in force today.
After the Industrial Revolution, the development of beer became faster and more vibrant: scientists like Carl von Linde and Louis Pasteur invented new technologies such as refrigerators. Experiments with crucial micro-organisms led to modern brewing technologies. In 1842, the first Pils was served in Pilsen (then Austria, today Czech Republic). This was revolutionary, as the beer was brewed using a newly invented technique, by fermenting it slowly and using light malt.
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| Photo: LuckyStarr |
| Hops growing in Hallertau, Bavaria |
In Europe, beer has long been the stuff of life. Even Kaiser Wilhelm II is reputed to have said, "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world." However, the image and connotations of beer have varied over the centuries. The Romans considered it to be barbarian and described it as the favoured drink of enemy German tribes. Nevertheless, it was brewed and drunk in Roman provinces, too. Its alcohol content was far lower than today. For special occasions, people added other ingredients that were often toxic: examples are henbane, mandragora or jimson weed.
During the middle-ages, beer was thought of as a cheap, ordinary and lower-class drink. People who could afford it drank wine instead. Nevertheless, huge amounts of beer were consumed, and the drink was a strong element of society - especially as it was usually safer to drink than water. Even the pope accepted and allowed extra strong German beer during Lenten season.
Beer was also frequently used for medical reasons. Famous healers like Hildegard of Bingen and Paracelsus recommended a certain amount of beer as "divine medicine" to cure some diseases, such as lung illnesses and melancholy. Hildegard also commented that beer improves the complexion, and it's her writings which provide the earliest evidence of the use of hops in beer.
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| Photo: The Yorck Project |
| The Beer Waitress, by Édouard Manet |
During the reign of Frederick William I. of Prussia, beer became fully socially acceptable in Central Europe and was introduced at court. That beer had become an essential part of daily life for citizens was shown by the serious reactions to attempts to raise beer prices in Bavaria. In 1888, a crowd completely destroyed one of the most traditional beer restaurants in Munich as a protest. (Fortunately, the Nockherberg restaurant was repaired and is still in use). Beer and politics seem to have become pretty closely interwoven in Germany: Otto von Bismarck once remarked, "It is a basic need of German people to complain about the government while drinking beer." But the story of beer doesn't just belong to Central Europe: the French painter Édouard Manet honoured the drink with a classic depiction in his painting The Beer Waitress. And all across Europe, folksongs attest to the popularity of beer, like these defiant lines from Somerset, England: Let gentlemen fine sit down to their wine/but we'll all of us here stick to our beer...
Beer has even had its star roles at EU level: for example, there was a major European lawsuit when Germany refused to import foreign beers that didn't conform to the German Reinheitsgebot. Discussions about the best beer can become serious issues, and foreign beer containing different ingredients from the traditional ones are generally mistrusted by Germans and Czechs.
But if you're happy to add extra ingredients to your beer, why not try a Radler? This beer cocktail is most common in southern Germany, but can also be found in northern Germany, France and Austria under different names. You can mix your own with beer and citron lemonade, both 50%.
Legend has it that Radler was invented by a Bavarian innkeeper in 1922. Being the owner of an inn about 15 km in the south of Munich that was frequently visited by cyclists, he was short of beer one day. The host didn't panic, but mixed the remaining beer with lemonade and presented this drink to the cyclists as if he had especially invented it for them so that they wouldn't have any problems cycling home because of too much beer. That's where the drink's name is from: Radler means cyclist.
This story is now considered to be a myth used as a commercial trick by the smart host: Radler actually seems to have been coined already by the end of the 19th century. But whoever created it first, Radler is a well-loved drink in Southern Germany today, and is mainly drunk in the summer during the beer garden season.
Originally mixed with dark beer, today’s Radler is made mostly with light beer. And there are a few classic variations: the Russn (= Russian), a mixture of wheat beer and citron lemonade, and Cola-Weizen, a drink made of Coke and wheat beer.
Beer is not only used for drinking. One of the benefits of barley is smoother skin, so some women eat beer barley as a medicine. Even if you don't want to go that far, you could try one of these traditional recipes which use beer to enhance their delicious flavour...
Flemish Carbonnade à la flamande
Ingredients (to serve 4 people):
800 g beef, 100 g bacon, 2 onions, 1 garlic clove, salt, 1 tbsp flour, 125 ml dark beer, 500 ml beef stock, 1 large sprig of parsley, 1 bay leaf, thyme, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp vinegar
Preparation:
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| Photo: Ben Buxton |
| For best results, use a Belgian beer - Abbey Beer or Oud Bruin |
Cut the bacon into small strips and fry it in a small pan, then remove from pan. Cut the beef into small pieces and fry it in the fat from the bacon, then put it aside as well. Peel and cut the onion and garlic and brown them in the pan. Add the flour, beer and beef broth and stir them together. Now add the bay leaf, parsley, thyme, sugar and vinegar to create the sauce. Put the beef and bacon back into the sauce and let it cook in the oven at 180°C for 1 hour.
Serve with boiled potatoes.
You could then complete your beer dinner with a German winter beer dessert:
Äpfel in Bierteig mit Zimtsauce (Apples in beer dough with cinnamon sauce)
Ingredients (to serve 6 people):
4 apples, 125 g flour, 125 ml light beer, 1 tbsp oil, salt, 1 egg, 80 g sugar, 500 ml milk, 3 egg yolks, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 vanilla pod, 1 tbsp starch, 1 tbsp cinnamon, oil to fry in, icing sugar
Preparation:
Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut them into slices, ½ cm thick. Separate one egg into yolk and white. Heat the milk with the vanilla pod.
For the dough, stir together the flour, beer, 1 egg yolk, sugar and salt, and add the oil. Beat the egg white until stiff, and add it to the dough. Cover the apple slices with dough and deep-fry them in oil. Put them aside and let the excess oil drip off. Then cover them with icing sugar.
To create the sauce, mix egg yolks, cinnamon, starch and sugar in a pan and add the hot milk. Heat until boiling. Sieve it and add to the apples. Delicious!